Warm Springs

Warm Springs, resort, Meriwether co., W Ga. The salutary properties of the water springing from Pine Mt. were known to Native Americans, and white settlers learned of them in the late 18th cent. By the 1830s a resort was established. Destroyed by fire in 1865, it was soon rebuilt and became fashionable by the end of the 19th cent. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who found the water beneficial after his attack of poliomyelitis, established (1927) the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation (now the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation) to help other victims of the disease, and he gave the foundation his 2,600-acre (1,052-hectare) farm there. He retained the cottage known as the Little White House (now a Georgia State Historic Site), in which he died in 1945. Nearby is the twon, incorporated in 1924 as Warm Springs (1990 pop. 407), formerly named Bullochville. Callaway Gardens (14,000 acres/ 5,660 hectares) is to the west.